Isn't this special.

Australian Immigrant Rupert Murdoch owns Times of London, the British publication that first published about Obama's 'Auntie Zeituni'.

Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, that "fair and balanced as long as it's talking about extreme right-wing politics" network.

An addition of an extra term for city officials will have a chilling effect on competition for elective office, worsening a political system in the City which is already on life support. The immediate critical problem is not that less than 1% of registered voters during the last primary had a choice at the polls; it is the centralization of control in the hands of a new breed of powerbrokers that has evolved since the corruption scandal uncovered in the 1980’s in the Koch administration.

Only one man can stop this elite gang of elected officials, party leaders, lobbyists and their clients from a complete takeover of New York City’s budget and political system: Michael Garcia, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District. Garcia, whose office is mostly known for convicting members of violent organized crime families, must not let the city’s secret powerbrokers end his investigation of the City Council’s member item slush fund scandal. Mr. Garcia, you have assembled valuable resources to stop this new ruling gang from continuing to loot the City’s budget. You must use the power in your hands to do so now. It was the municipal scandal of the 80’s that led to the term limits reform not the money of Ron Lauder.

Will Garcia Uncover a New Municipal Scandal to Rival New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie’s Accomplishments?

Eliot Spitzer

Clarence Norman, the former head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, is currently in jail for grand larceny and coercion of judicial candidates.

That tells you most of what you need to know about the Brooklyn Democratic Party, one of the more corrupt political organizations outside the Republican Party.

Things change and things stay the same. Things change in that yes, Clarence Norman got caught and thrown in prison. But things stay the same. Norman's replacement, Vito Lopez, has carried on in similar fashion, though perhaps slightly more subtle about it.

Bit by bit the power of Party Boss Vito Lopez is slipping. This was evident in this year's Democratic County Committee meeting this last Monday where what seemed to me to be some three, maybe four, groups of insurgents disrupting the scripted farce.

This was our third County Committee meeting. The first was when Joy was already overdue with Jacob. We had kind of hoped she would go into labor right then and there and disrupt the script. That would have been especially satisfying because it would have disrupted former Party Boss Clarence Norman's last hurrah before he went to prison. But Jacob debut came days later, so he didn't manage to upsatge Clarence Norman. That first meeting was also our entry into the insurgency as we saw what a farce it was, nothing more than a rubber stamp to the Party Boss's power with no real democracy as part of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. The highlight was Ken Diamondstone's efforts to expose the farce for what it was. Diamondstone's efforts were ineffective, but they were both entertaining and illustrative. Sometimes the only way to fight a farce is with farce.

The judicial convention is one of the ways corruption can best thrive in Brooklyn's machine dominated political landscape. Yet most Brooklynites have no clue what the judicial convention is, why we have it, or what needs changing about it.

Apparently Chris Owens, President of Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, wants to do something about that. His efforts have created something of a stir because he is raising money as part of his run for delegate to the judicial convention. This raised eyebrows because no one could imagine why you need money to run for an uncontested party position. I held off commenting for the most part because I suspected there may well be a plan behind Chris Owens' fundraising, and I suspected I knew what it was since I had similar ideas (which I never followed up on) regarding County Committee.

What happens when the government gives no bid contracts with no oversight to a company closely associated with the Vice President? Yes, cronyism. Yes, corruption. But possibly worse than Republican cronyism and corruption are troops killed by the incompetance and callousness of a company that cares about nothing by profits.

As outlined in a Daily Kos diary, KBR, a branch of Halliburton, a company closely associated with Dick Cheney and favored heavily by the Republican Party for no-bid contracts with no oversight, has so bungled the maintenance of one of our Iraq bases that 12 of our troops have been electorcuted since 2004.

And this company has continued to get no bid contracts even though this problem was known. This is the worst kind of Republican corruption: sacrificing our troops for greed. That's goes even beyond the usual Republican war profiteering.

From a Houston Chronicle article:

The worst part of the whole "Spitzer Can't Keep it in His Pants" story is not that Spitzer slept with a prostitute, or that he paid huge sums of money for it, or that he got caught, or that his actions may for now derail reform in New York State. The worst part is the hypocritical, self-rightous chest thumping that Republican politicians and their media friends are engaging in.

Somehow, normal sex sets the right wing fanatics off in a fit of hysteria that would give Freud wet dreams. But if one of their own commits pedophilia, what do you hear from these people? Nothing! They cover it up if they can and circle the wagons if they can't. Let's keep this whole thing in perspective. Bill Clinton got a blow job, an act of consensual sex between adults, and the Republicans demanded impeachment. Eliot Spitzer hired an expensive sex worker and the Republicans are threatening impeachment. But a whole slew of Republicans on all levels of government engage in pedophilia and you hear nary a peep from the Republican noise machine. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

A strange sight was reported in Bushwick: Brooklyn Democratic Party Leader Vito Lopez was seen dancing in the streets and singing the praises of Justice Scalia.

Okay...so maybe Vito wasn't dancing and singing in the streets of Bushwick...but I am sure he was tempted. The Supreme Court just gave him a belated Christmas gift.

New York State has a system for choosing certain judges through an insider convention which basically allows party leaders to dominate the process, creating some pretty disgusting scandals, at least in Brooklyn (see, for example, here and here. The system basically made judgeships a political plum that party bosses could give out with little or no regard for qualifications or honesty. It also means that most people who get nominated for judicial spots have had to donate to the party boss.

I have voted Republican. Once, I think. Just once. I have voted Green. Once...maybe twice.

The vast majority of the time I vote, donate, agitate and work for the Democratic Party with varying degrees of pride, enthusiasm and, occasionally, holding my nose.

The Democratic Party Machine in Brooklyn, led by Vito Lopez, pretty much makes you hold your nose because there is always a stench of sleaze around them. There are debates as to whether they are an improvement over the previous incarnation of the Brooklyn Machine, the one whose former head is now deservedly in jail. Well, if you have to debate whether they are better than someone who is jailed for corruption, you know you are in trouble.